John Copnall

John Bainbridge Copnall (1928–2007) was an English artist best known for his abstract expressionist painting of richly coloured stylised realism, often on a grand scale. He was also a teacher of painting for twenty years at the Central School of Art and Design in London.

John Bainbridge Copnall
Born16 February 1928
Slinfold nr Horsham, England
Died9 June 2007(2007-06-09) (aged 79)
London, England
NationalityBritish
Education
Known forLandscape & abstract painting

Early life

John Copnall was born in Slinfold, a village near Horsham in West Sussex. His father was the eminent sculptor Edward Bainbridge Copnall (1903–1970)[1] whilst his mother Muriel was an enthusiastic amateur artist. His uncle and aunt, Frank and Teresa Copnall, were both professional artists.[2] as was another uncle, Hubert Picton Copnall (1918–1997),[3]who also farmed in Sussex for over thirty years. His paternal grandfather, Edward White Copnall,[4] was an early photographer and artist.

Copnall showed early promise in drawing and at the age of eighteen he began studying at the Architectural Association in London. This proved a poor choice of a career as Copnall lacked the required mathematical ability and used the excuse of his National Service to leave architecture permanently in order to become a professional artist.[5]

Career in Spain

Initially Copnall started his painting studies under the tutelage of his father at the Sir John Cass School of Art in the City of London and from June 1950 to June 1955 under the artist Sir Henry Rushbury[6] at the Royal Academy School.[7] His early work was largely figurative and he won Turner Gold Medal for Landscape Painting in his penultimate year in 1954.[5]

In 1954 Copnall and his artist friend Bert Flugelman[8]visited Spain for what was intended to be a short visit but he fell in love with the Iberian landscape and stayed for fourteen years. Whilst on Ibiza he married his first wife Madeleine Chardon with whom he had a daughter and when the marriage ended he moved to the mainland to live in a hacienda in the mountains above Malaga where he earned a living as a painter sometimes using the name of Juan de Retamá. The intense light of Spain and the visceral nature of its people changed his art fundamentally as he experimented with intense earthy colours whilst increasingly moving towards abstraction. Throughout his career Copnall was interested in using intense colour and the Spanish light undoubtedly enhanced his artistic senses.[9]

As the 1960's progressed Copnall became fashionable and he began to sell his paintings to private collectors, including actor Melvyn Douglas.[10] He had several solo exhibitions in Spain and Catalonia as well as shows in Germany where he was also popular and a lesser one in England in Newcastle. He said of his life in the 1960s: "No Beatles, but plenty of bullfighting, flamenco and Rioja!"[9]

Return to England

In 1968 Copnall returned to England and the following year held a solo exhibition at the Bear Lane Gallery in Oxford. His work of this period displayed the influence of American abstract expressionists such as Barnett Newman, Morris Louis and Mark Rothko with Copnall using acrylic paint on cotton duck on increasingly larger canvasses. His use of colour was exuberant. Copnall stated that 'Painting is colour and colour is painting."[9] In 1970 he won the E. A. Abbey Scholarship[11] and further recognition followed with Arts Council awards in 1973 and a British Council Award in 1979. As the 60s progressed abstract art began to lose influence as new 'pop' style were in vogue and to some extent Copnall found himself less fashionable during the late 1970s and 1980s.[9] A series of solo exhibitions were held throughout the 1970s but Copnall had become an increasingly peripheral figure in the context of mainstream English art.[9] Nevertheless, he was an influential figure for the next generation of British artists by virtue of a twenty-year period from 1973 to 1993 when Copnall worked as a teacher at the Canterbury School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. [9]

Later years in London

John Copnall married for the second time in 1976 to Caroline Brown with whom he had a son and a daughter and by 1982, he was working in an artists' colony in the East End of London at the defunct Spratt's dog biscuit warehouse in Bow[9] whilst continuing with his teaching role. In 1996 his solo show Reflections, Orbits and Radiances[12] in the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex drew mainly on work done in the period 1992-96. In the catalogue, Christopher Lloyd, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures,[13] considered that it was "difficult to think of a more appropriate setting for John Copnall's paintings" than this light-filled example of pioneering mid-1930s architecture.[5][14]

Copnall was elected to the London Group[15] in 1988. During the final years of his life, divorced from his second wife Copnall painted infrequently and ceased all together following a stroke. He died on 9 June 2007 following a short illness.[5]

Selected Public Collections
  • Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museum[16]
  • Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge[17]
  • Arts Council England[18]
  • Ateneum museum, Helsinki[19]
  • Chelsea & Westminster Hospital[20]
  • St. Mary's College, Twickenham, London[21]

References
  1. Chilvers, Ian; Glaves-Smith, John, eds. (2009). "Copnall, Edward Bainbridge". A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press. p. 156. ISBN 9780199239658.
  2. Grant M. Waters (1975). Dictionary of British Artists Working 1900-1950. Eastbourne Fine Art.
  3. Copnall, Hubert. "British and Irish Artists of the 20th Century". Artist Biographies. Artist Biographies Ltd. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  4. Edward White Copnall. "Professional Photographers in Horsham (W)". Sussex PhotoHistory. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  5. David Buckman (October 2007). "Obituary of John Copnall". The Independent.
  6. Tod Ramos, Julia Rushbury, and Felicity Owen, Henry Rushbury Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné. Published by The Royal Academy (2010)
  7. Jerry Knight, All About Horsham Magazine, Article on Bainbridge Copnall, May 2013
  8. Peter Pinson: Bert Flugelman, Watermark Press (2008) ISBN 0-949284-82-3
  9. Guardian obituary by Simon Fenwick, 12 July 2007
  10. Douglas, Melvyn; Tom Arthur (1986). See You at the Movies: The Autobiography of Melvyn Douglas. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. ISBN 0-8191-5390-7.
  11. "British School Rome". The Abbey Fellowships incorporating the Edwin Austin Abbey Memorial Scolarships. BSR. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  12. Copnall, John (1996). Reflections, Orbits and Radiances, Paintings 1992-1996 (Exhibition catalogue ed.). Mill Street, London SE1: Reed's Wharf Gallery.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  13. Lloyd, Christopher. "The Dictionary of Art Historians". Dictionary of Art Historians. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  14. Copnall, John. "John Copnall : recent abstract paintings (1996)". WorldCat. Austin/Desmond Fine Art, London, 1989. Retrieved 4 January 2023.
  15. Jennifer Granger (2003). John Copnall. The London Group. Archived 13 September 2005.
  16. Copnall, John. "Green for Cathy (Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums)". Art UK. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  17. Copnall, John. "Pale Blue Abstract 1". Art UK. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  18. Buckman, David (2006). Artists in Britain Since 1945. Art Dictionary Ltd., (part of Sansom & Co). pp. 1, 888. ISBN 9780953260959.
  19. Ateneum Museum. "International collection". Ateneum. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  20. Copnall, John. "Radiance II (Chelsea and Westminster Hospital)". Art UK. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  21. Copnall, John (2008). Space and Colour (catalogue). St. Mary College, Twickenham: Mark Barrow Fine Art. p. 28.
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